Pebble has made a major announcement today that makes the company’s e-ink smartwatches a lot more useful and a lot more competitive. Available in the Pebble Android app version 2.3.0 beta, Pebble smartwatches running firmware 2.9 or higher will work with Android Wear notifications, essentially turning your Pebble into an Android Wear plus device with access to the best of both worlds.

According to Pebble, once the update goes live for everyone, users won’t have to do anything to take advantage of Android Wear notifications. In Pebble’s own words:

These new interactions from Pebble are amazing because Android developers do no extra work to make the magic happen. The Pebble Android app uses actions baked into Wear-integrated apps already. If you can do it with Android Wear, you can do it with Pebble.Pebbleon Android Wear notification support

As an example of what your smartwatch can do after the update, Pebble has provided video demos of someone using a Pebble to send money with SquareCash and reply to a Hangouts message with an emoji. You can check them out below.

As of right now, the update that enables Android Wear notifications is still in beta, but Pebble is inviting everyone to sign up and try it out.

With incredible battery life and a comparably slim form-factor, the Pebble and Pebble Steel were already two of our favorite smartwatches even without Android Wear support. Now they’re more attractive than ever.

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Bart

I just checked Pebble’s website. I also checked Google Play for the Asus Zenwatch. Both are the same price. If I weren’t concerned about Google’s “no returns” policy, I would definitely take Asus over Pebble. Maybe Best Buy will start carrying the Zenwatch at the beginning of 2015 in their stores.

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